


its shape is your touch

by galacticdrift (Ancalime)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Hair Braiding, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 18:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21342625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ancalime/pseuds/galacticdrift
Summary: Spun off from a prompt I received on tumblr, about Fjord getting flustered braiding Cad's hair and Jester catching on. Unnecessarily sad title from Richard Brautigan.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord
Comments: 8
Kudos: 179





	its shape is your touch

**Author's Note:**

> must a fic have a plausible premise? is it not enough simply to take your beloved pining idiots and inflict some nonsexual intimacy upon them?

Jester's roped him into her preparations for the fancy dinner that evening; she's gotten the notion that they should all have their hair braided for it for some reason only she understands, and recruited him-- to help save her fingers from wearing out doing everyone else's, she said.

Jester's given him a tight braid running along one side of his undercut, pulling in some of the hair and leaving the rest free; in exchange he's made his best attempt at two simple braids running down from her horns, leaving the ends free at her neck to form little pigtails. It's hardly the neat, tight efficiency of his line work, but that's not the point. Fjord thinks it suits her well, without getting more complicated than he can handle.

Caduceus steps into the room and stops short for a moment, Caleb and Nott and Beau and Jester all piling up behind him before he moves out of the doorway. His hair is still damp and unbound; without armor or even shoes, in just his silk shirt and pants, he looks-- soft. Unfinished. Fjord has to remind himself that they all see each other like this all the time, rattling around the Xhorhaus as they do, trampling roughshod over each other's personal boundaries.

"Everybody into the dining room!" Jester's singsong comes from behind them and they all move inside. "I've got Beau and Nott, and Fjord, you've got Caduceus. Whoever finishes first will do Caleb next. Okay? Nott, come over here and have a seat."

At Fjord's beckoning wave, Cad comes up to the table, but doesn't sit down immediately. He taps the side of his own head. "Is that your work?"

"Hm? Oh, no, I much prefer being able to see what I'm doing. Jester and I traded off. She did mine, I did hers."

"Oh. I see." Looking over at Jester, Cad cocks his head, then turns back to him, and Fjord can almost feel his gaze tracing the braid and the fall of loose hair to the side. "You both did good work. It suits you."

"Thank you." Fjord's face warms, and he gestures at the bench in front of the table. "Shall we?"

"Oh, right." Cad sits down with his back to Fjord. "Do I need to tilt my head?"

"Maybe, ah, actually, here--" Fjord grasps Cad by the shoulders, turning him a little to the left so Fjord has a better angle on his hair. "Now just slouch a bit. There, that should be fine. Any requests?"

"Not at all. I'll leave it in your hands."

Fjord runs a hand over Cad's hair, then through it, gently, trying not to tug too hard at any of the damp strands. Fresh from bathing, he smells a little like marshland -- both the green and growing life as well as the murk and decay it grows from. He continues to stroke his fingers through it idly, thinking about what patterns might look the best. It's a long few moments, Cad's hair flowing like silk through his fingers, before Cad's eyes slant over to him and Fjord jerks to attention.

"Well, I've, uh, got some ideas, but let's start simple, hm?" Fjord picks up a small section of hair from near Cad's forehead, at one of the boundaries where pale, silvery gray breaks through the pink so he gets a bit of both, then separates it into three segments. His hands start working almost automatically, pulling taut and weaving the pieces together, close and tight.

"Let me know if I'm pulling too hard." Fjord mutters. "I don't usually work on anything that can complain about getting yanked around."

"Oh, no, you're fine." Fjord's fingers fly without thought, already finishing up the first braid by the time Caduceus considers the question and responds, in his slow and deliberate way, and he ties off the tiny braid with a small scrap of cloth. "Oh. You work fast."

"Had to learn it on the water." Fjord's already lifting up a fresh section of hair and dividing it, fingers working without him even thinking about it. "There's a hundred different types of knots to tie things together, of course, but then there's also all the braids and twists you need to use for mending lines and splicing pieces of rope together when need be." Fjord gestures with the unfinished second braid. "This is a bit smaller scale than what I'd usually have been working with, but the muscle memory still serves me well enough."

"Are you going to do all of it like that?"

"No, that's not the look for you." Fjord responds, absently, letting the finished braid fall free and giving it a little tug. "But I'll do a few more of these, I think."

"All right." Cad's eyes flick up to meet Fjord's, then away. He folds and refolds his hands in his lap as Fjord collects another small section and begins to braid it.

Jester looks over as he finishes the third braid. "Fjord, I'm going to be finished with both of these two before you get done with Caduceus."

"Well, that's good, because I could use your expertise over here when you've got a minute." Fjord's fingers fly; he's not even paying attention to them until one wayward tug gets a hiss from Caduceus. It's just for just a moment but Fjord jolts as if burned, his hands loosening.

"I apologize, I wasn't paying enough attention." Fjord holds the braid in place with one hand and runs the other over Cad's hair, stroking. It starts as an absent motion, like Caleb would use to soothe his cat, until Fjord realizes halfway through what he's doing and freezes, his hand cupping Cad's skull. Just behind Cad's ear is a particularly soft, tender spot; Fjord lets his thumb brush over it once, and then again, before pulling away.

"Don't, uh, don't worry about it." Cad pats his knee where he's got his leg braced on the bench next to him.

"What do you need help with, Fjord?" Jester calls, from where she's got both hands tangled up in Nott's hair, giving her what looks like a braided crown, an expression of deep concentration on her face. The tip of her tongue sticks out between her teeth.

"The kind of braid you did on my hair," Fjord gestures up at his own hair, the partly-loose style she'd given him. "I'd like to try something like that for Deuces. What's the trick of it?"

"Well, you just have to do, like, a regular fancy overhand braid where you pick up more hair each time, but then instead of picking up more, you swap it out."

Fjord pauses, then shrugs helplessly. "I need a little bit more to go on."

"Okay, so normally you start with a little bit of hair and then add some each time you twist it, right?"

"Mmhmm."

"For what I did with your hair, you keep the same sections but instead of _ adding _ them to the current braid, you let out the part you had before and then pick up more hair to replace it." Jester's hand gesture could be describing anything from braiding hair to thaumaturgy to a handjob, but Fjord thinks he can follow along enough with what she's saying to get the gist of it.

"I-- think I understand, Jester, thank you." Fjord finishes up another small braid and ties it off.

"It'll be easier with Caduceus than it was with you. His hair is so much longer so you can keep it really loose and it'll look _ great _."

"That's a relief." Fjord stares at Cad's hair, and his voice drops to a low murmur. "All right, bear with me. I may need to give this a couple of tries before I get the hang of it."

"Take your time. I've got all day." Cad turns his head just enough to slant a smile up at Fjord, through the remaining curtain of unbraided hair, and it hits him like a blow to the chest. He takes a moment to focus on Cad's hair, his hands pulling through it in casual nonsense motions until he can manage some degree of focus once more.

"Let's see, then." Fjord runs his fingers along Cad's forehead, picking up the first few sections of hair and separating them out. "Overhand braid, but let sections fall through--"

He twines the segments over once, twice, then picks up what he would be adding to the third segment and replaces it. It's a bit of a mess, trying to get his fingers in all the right places at once, letting the right part fall free and picking up more to replace it. Fjord gets hopelessly tangled up the first couple of times, his fingers trying too hard to follow the patterns he already knows. He keeps having to tease it all out again, finger-combing Cad's hair and brushing over his scalp every time in the best and worst kind of self-torture.

"Okay," Fjord says eventually, having made it about halfway through Cad's hair. "Not to jinx myself but I think I've got the hang of it."

Jester hops up on the table next to him as he nears the end. "Hey, it looks really good!"

"Thank you Jester, you didn't need to sound quite so surprised." Fjord smiles at her as he reaches the end of Cad's hair and ties off the last couple of pieces, letting the tails fall free with the rest of the loose hair. The effect _is_ lovely, he thinks -- all the more so with Cad's streaky colors and the small braids he's worked into the main one.

"It looks _ beautiful_, Caduceus. Here." Jester passes Cad a hand mirror so he can examine the results.

"Thank you, Jester." Cad tilts the mirror back and forth, then looks up and Fjord. "And thank you, Fjord. Jester is right, you did a really good job."

"Thanks." Fjord isn't sure what to do with his hands now. He's a little sad he doesn't have any excuse to keep playing with Cad's hair.

"When you do it like this it's called a waterfall braid." Cad makes a noise of pleased surprise, and Jester elbows Fjord. "Now that you know how to do it, you could braid Caduceus's hair whenever he wants. Right?"

"I-- could, sure." Fjord peers at her, suspicious, but her face is the picture of perfect innocence.

"I'd like that." Cad admits quietly, looking down at his hands, something shy and hesitant in his manner, and Fjord can't keep himself from getting momentarily distracted at the shifting tumble of his braided hair. "I don't do much with it myself very often. My sisters used to, sometimes."

"Of course. Any time, Caduceus." Fjord gives in to the urge to touch again, lets himself reach out and toy with the end of one of the small braids. "I'm happy to."


End file.
